


Game On

by smolassassinchildx (smolassassinchild)



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-09
Updated: 2009-12-09
Packaged: 2017-10-04 07:18:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smolassassinchild/pseuds/smolassassinchildx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Apparently a game of Capture the Flag had flared up between the neighboring barracks by the bored cadets that had yet to leave for break.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Game On

  
The sound of pounding footsteps in the halls drew Lee’s attention away from his contraband book. He knew from experience that the last day before Solstice leave generally brought out high spirits among the cadets, but the level of noise in the barracks tonight was just ridiculous. Lee was hoping that the running would just fade away so he could get back to his reading, but the evening would prove to hold no such luck.

His door opened with a bang, and he sat upright, quickly tucking his book under his pillow—the last thing he wanted was to get caught with Zarek’s book and drummed out. Without a word of greeting, Kara strode into his room, over to his closet, and started rifling through his things. 

If someone asked Lee to pinpoint when he'd become friends with Kara, he wasn't sure he could've come up with an answer. But he remembered with shocking clarity the exact moment he met her. 

He'd been at Charlie's Bar with the other cadets, when she'd walked in, a ringing laugh and bright blonde hair catching his attention and someone had pointed her out as the Cadet Thrace who'd pissed off Major McVeigh at the freshman orientation session by blowing a puff of smoke in his face, after his announcement that first years were not allowed cigarettes or cigars. That night Lee hadn't been able to help watching her, she had a presence that was...magnetic, inescapable. It was like she was everywhere at once—certainly, she seemed to be all over the other cadets. 

She'd caught him looking from the other end of the pool table, easily hustling some of the third years who were more focused on the line of her cleavage than the line of her pool cue. Of course, his attention had mostly been on the seemingly effortless skill with which she lined up each shot, the way her hands curled firmly around the cue, the power and precision behind each strike. 

Money pocketed, she sidled over, brushing up against him as she leaned against the bar. “Admiring my stick technique?” she asked with a wicked grin. He felt heat rising in his cheeks. “You’re very talented,” he said a little too loudly. She leaned closer, her breath hot against his ear, as she whispered. “Wanna find out how talented?” 

The words had sent a shiver through his entire body, and he could feel his response, _gods, yes_ forming on the tip of his tongue, but he’d been seeing someone at the time and Lee prided himself on being a faithful boyfriend. Still, there was something about that encounter kept popping up in his mind, keeping Kara a constant in his thoughts…usually in the shower.

He got the feeling she was a girl most guys didn’t say no to, couldn’t say no to, and somehow he got the feeling that hung in the air whenever they were together. Their vague acquaintance quickly turned into a display of one-upmanship, small victories of card games, drinking games, pool, the outdated video game machine at the back corner of the bar. Neither one of them maintained their victorious status for very long; and eventually it faded from rivalry to a more comfortable camaraderie, until Lee realized she was just always there, in a way that felt completely inevitable, and he wasn’t quite sure what things would be like without her around. Well, he thought as he watched her rummaging through his things, his door would probably get knocked on a little more often.

“Kara, what are you—” Lee was cut off mid-sentence by his winter coat hitting him square in the face. He gathered the down jacket in his arms in time to see his snow boots fly out of the closet one at a time. The first one landed by his desk, the second hit him in the shin. “Kara!” 

“What are you waiting for?” She looked up, and for the first time Lee noticed she was wearing a wool cap pulled down around her ears with just a few wisps of blonde hair sticking out around the edges. Her cheeks were flushed a bright red and her lips were twisted into an excited smile that he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen on her face before. “Get dressed!”

“Kara what is going on?” Lee spluttered.

“I was sent to recruit you,” she said as she kicked his closet shut and tossed his gloves over to him. “I can’t believe you’re just sitting around in your room. No, scratch that. I _can_ believe it, I just think you’re a moron.” Kara dug her own gloves out of her pocket and headed for the door. She cast a look over her shoulder to where he still stood glued to the spot. “Move it or lose it, Adama!” she snapped. 

Before he knew what he was doing, Lee was shoving his feet into his boots and tugging on his jacket as he trailed Kara out into the hallway. “You still haven’t told me what’s going on.” She didn’t break her pace, just pounded down the stairs and out the front door. 

Finally, standing outside in the night air, Lee was finally starting to get what was going on. The last time he’d been outside was three hours ago when he was coming back from dinner. The sky had been grey and dark but other than that there had been nothing of interest to report. Now there had to be a solid five inches of snow on the ground and the white stuff was still falling from the sky. “Oh my gods,” he breathed, watching the air form a little cloud in front of his face. 

“Come on, Lee, I need that big brain of yours,” she said, sprinting across the lawn and ducking down behind a row of hedges. Lee looked around, feeling utterly bewildered once again, until she waved him over. He cast another glance around, catching a few shadows moving out of the corner of his eye. 

“You still haven’t told me what you were sent to recruit me for,” he asked in a harsh whisper as he dropped down beside her. Kara raised herself up to glance over the hedge. Lee rolled his eyes and looked back out across the lawn. He could see a couple meters away, a large snow wall had been built and several of the cadets on his floor were staring out from behind it.

“We’re heading into enemy territory,” she whispered, tugging at his jacket. “Come on.”

“Enemy territory?” His question fell on deaf ears. She was already heading for the tree line, her shadow fading against the dark silhouettes of the woods. A part of him wanted to just go back inside, it was cold and wet and all he wanted was to just go back and finish his book, and yet there was the other part that had been humming with curiosity the moment she barged into his room, the moment he saw her smiling in a way he’d never seen. He wanted to know what it was that she was so excited about. 

Lee stayed crouched low to the ground, until he was standing next to her, the two of them creeping through the tree cover towards some goal only she seemed to understand. “Do you mind telling me what—”

“Shh!” she hissed.

“Kara!”

“No, really, Lee. _Shhh_!” 

Lee held his breath and was certain he heard a pair of approaching footsteps, not too far away. The wind and the snow were messing with his sense of direction and he couldn’t quite place where they were coming from.

_“Frak!”_ Kara swore under her breath. “Okay, split up. He can’t catch both of us.” 

And that was how, in no time at all, Lee found himself sitting on his ass in the snow, his fatigues completely soaked with icy water and a hefty bruise forming on his cheek where it had met a snowball launched by Cadet Karl Agathon from Memnon Barracks. Apparently a game of Capture the Flag had flared up between the neighboring dorms by the bored teens that had yet to leave for break. The game had been going for an hour and a half before Kara dragged him out here and left him to be apprehended by the enemy. He’d been marched to the other team’s snow-fort/jail despites his protests that he hadn’t even known he was playing. 

Lee tucked his hands under his arms; they were starting to go numb and he was not going to lose any appendages to this stupid game. He wasn’t sure exactly how long he’d been out there, but he was guessing it was getting pretty close to the half-hour mark. He had seen a bunch of the so-called guards switch off on rotation a few times, catching bits of their chatter. 

He was beginning to wonder why the hell he was still sitting there when he heard the faint crunch of footsteps coming from the woods. He glanced up to see the two cadets who were supposed to be guarding him, chatting away about a recent final exam, before turning his gaze to the woods. It was a good ten meters with no cover between the fort and the woods, but he could see Kara crouched down by a tree, grinning at him. She was signaling him… three… two…

On the count of one, Lee heard voices off in the distance; nothing overt but it was enough to catch the attention of the Memnon guards and they took off running. Lee looked back to see Kara sprinting across the snow to grab his hand. “Come on,” she said, hauling him to his feet and the two of them took off running for the woods. 

“Thanks for saving my ass,” he deadpanned, once they were a safe distance beyond the tree line. 

“Lousy perimeter,” she grinned. “Left a huge blind spot.” 

“That’s because they’ve got most of their people out by the mess.” She quirked an eyebrow at him. “That’s where they have their flag. I overheard a lot.”

“I knew you’d be useful.” Kara gave him an open-handed pat on the back, a wide grin planted on her face. That’s when it hit him: She was having the time of her life out here. He had to admit to himself, this was the closest any of them had come to actual combat at the academy, and it was filling him with a surge of adrenaline. He felt a grin begin to cross his own lips as he watched the spark in her eyes. Gods, she looked so beautiful and why the hell was he thinking that _now_ of all times?

There was a small lock of blonde hair that was matted to her cheek with either ice or sweat or both. Lee was about to reach up and brush it away when there was a soft crunch of footsteps approaching. He turned his head in the direction of the noise and saw a shadowed person holding up their hands. “Friendlies!” a male voice insisted. Three figures approached and, despite the lack of light, Lee recognized them from his barracks. 

“Sitrep?” Kara asked, folding her arms over her chest.

A young woman, Cadet Gwenith Allen, ran through the list of people patrolling their side of the playing field, guarding their flag and their prison, and proudly announced that they had two of the Memnon cadets in hack. “But right now there’s just the five of us out here,” she concluded. “Any idea how many they have?” 

“There’s three taking rotations guarding the fort, but now that they have no prisoners, I suspect they’ll be gathering their forces around the flag.” Lee scrubbed a hand over his face. “Okay, I have an idea.” 

\---

Ten minutes later, the five of them crouched at the edge of a clearing. Standing in the middle, passing a thermos among them, were seven cadets with a small arsenal of snowballs piled and at the ready. _Frakkers_, sitting around all nice and warm, Lee was still worried about the diminishing feeling in his hands. Kara was rubbing her own hands too as she glanced over her shoulder. “You remember the plan, Allen?”

“Got it.” She gave a sharp nod. Behind her, Markus Emory gave a slight whimper. “Do we have to be bait?” 

“Sometimes you gotta take one for the team,” Lee whispered. “Follow me, Thrace.”

“Who said you were in charge?” she whispered back, but nevertheless followed him around to the opposite edge of the clearing. The two of them sat hunched behind the trunk of a rather large tree and waited. A few moments later, chaos broke out as Allen led her troops into the clearing, startling the cadets. One of them dropped the thermos, the other toppled into their pile of snowballs. Another five took off after Allen’s unit as they raced into the woods, leaving two behind. Even from his position behind the tree, Lee could see that one of them was Karl. 

“I see it,” he felt Kara’s hot breath against his ear and felt a shiver run up his spine—just the excitement of the game, he told himself. She pointed towards two trees, between which, hanging from a string, was a small Fleet Strikers pennant. “Gimme twenty seconds and go.” Lee watched as she slipped away, patting together a snowball in her hands before launching it straight at the back of Agathon’s head.

“Hey!” Karl hissed, as she strode out into the clearing, another snowball at the ready. “You can’t get someone out when you’re on enemy territory, Thrace.”

“No, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun,” she grinned, tossing the other snowball from hand to hand. 

He watched as she ran across the snow._ Fourteen… fifteen… sixteen…_ Lee pressed himself up against the trunk of one of the trees, the flag was just in arm’s reach._Eighteen… nineteen…_ Lee heard the dull thud of another snowball landing, and snatched the pennant, edging back into the woods and towards the lawn where it would be a good hundred meters back to their side with no cover. He was just about to break the tree line when he heard Kara’s voice shouting. “Move your ass, Adama!”

In the clear, Lee started sprinting, but could hear footsteps hot on his heels. If they really put some power into it they could catch him before he cleared the line back into friendly territory. He had to get them off their guard. Bending as he ran, Lee scooped up a handful of snow, patting it into a hasty ball. He turned and tossed it back towards his pursuers. It sailed right past them towards Kara who was gaining on them all. 

It was Karl who caught up to him first, dove and took him out at the knees. Lee was grateful for the snow-cushioned landing and he was already soaked to the skin anyways. He rolled onto his back coughing, sucking in icy air as he tried to catch his breath. Agathon sat up, rooting around in the drifts around them. “Hey, where the frak’s the flag?” 

No sooner had he spoken, than Lee heard a loud, long, obnoxious shout. Kara’s shout. He sat up and craned his head to see her standing just over the line, waving the pennant above her head in triumph. He grinned and fell back into the snow laughing. 

“The flag was in the snowball?” Agathon asked pushing himself to his feet and extending his hand towards Lee. Lee gripped it and levered himself up, nodding. “Well played,” Karl said with an appreciative grin. 

Lee looked back towards Kara with a smile on his face, a warm feeling starting to spread across his chest. “It was her idea.” 

\---

Lee had never been more grateful to get indoors as he had been after that game. He went back to his room and peeled off his soaking clothes, pulling on a pair of baggy sweatpants and a sweatshirt before heading up to the third floor and knocking on Kara’s door. 

“Come in!”

When Lee walked into the room, she was running a towel through her hair, a pair of baggy sweat pants hung low on her hips and she had yet to put on a top beyond her sports bra. Her roommate had obviously left for the break earlier that day as she was nowhere to be seen. On her desk, Kara had an electric kettle heating up some water and a battery-operated wireless, which was spewing out hyperbole like_ worst storm in recorded history. _

“I don’t know how weatherpeople keep their jobs here,” Lee said looking out her window—and not checking her out, why was he checking her out? That’s not something friends did, that they did—where the snow was still coming down steadily. “It was supposed to be flurrying.”

Kara shrugged her shoulders as she sat down heavily on her bed. “You know what they say. Don’t like the weather on Picon, wait five minutes.”

“Five minutes?” He gestured wildly at her window. “Kara, that’s not going to let up in five minutes; that’s a full-blown blizzard. Frak, I’m supposed to be catching a flight back to Caprica tomorrow.”

“Doesn’t look likely,” she laughed. “All the spaceports have shut down until further notice.” Her attention was turned her attention down to her hands, which were rough and red and dry and she was picking away at some of the chapped skin.

“Okay, stop that, you’re going to make it worse,” Lee said as he sat down next to her. “It’s also really frakking gross.” 

Kara rolled her eyes. “Well if my personal hygiene bugs you, you know where the door is.” 

Lee shook his head. “You dragged me out into that game, as far as I’m concerned you need to warm me up and I’m not leaving until I collect on that debt. It’s only fair.” 

“Well, Lee, if that’s what you want for the holidays.” A wicked smirk began to cross Kara’s lips and she bounced an eyebrow at him. Lee felt his face begin to pale as he realized what he had just asked of her, blood draining away and rushing right back, hot and embarrassed. 

“Cocoa! I meant hot cocoa! Because it’s so cold out.”

Kara fell back against her bed laughing as the electric kettle started to whistle. “You are too easy, Lee. Fine, help yourself, it’s in the bottom dresser drawer.” She got to her feet, and walked over to her desk, rummaging for an extra mug. 

Lee headed over to her dresser; he knelt down and pulled the drawer open and blinked a few times at the contents—several boxes of cocoa and tea and more packages of noodles than he could count. “Wow, you were really prepared for getting snowed in.”

“Huh?” She looked at him over her shoulder, confusion only fading away when he held up the package of noodles. “Oh that, no. I wasn’t planning on eating at the mess over break.” 

Lee’s brow furrowed as he picked up a box of the cocoa mix and walked over to her. “You’re not going home?”

She didn’t reply, just shrugged her shoulders and took the box from him. Kara never talked about her parents. He assumed her family life was less than perfect from that fact alone, but even the Adama family tended to make something a little bit enjoyable over the winter holidays. His mother was usually in a decent mood after a glass of egg nog, and his father managed to show up at least for a few days most years, and his little brother always seemed to dive head first into holiday spirit and making the best of things. It wasn’t one of those holiday card commercial celebrations, but it was Solstice. 

“It’s just another couple of days,” she said, after taking a sip of the hot chocolate. Lee lifted his mug to his lips but refrained from drinking any, as it was still scaldingly hot. “Solstice doesn’t even remotely resemble what it used to mean, and besides, it’s not like it’s actually the Solstice on all the Colonies at the exact same time. It’s just some blanket government holiday so people can have time off of their jobs and buy meaningless gifts to stimulate the economy.” 

Lee stood blinking at her as she studied the contents of her mug intently. There was something in that monologue that made him suspect her bitterness wasn’t entirely about how commercial the winter holidays had become, but instead of pressing the issue, something that never worked with her anyways, he shrugged his shoulders. “So I take it that means you don’t want your present?”

The words seemed to take a moment to register; she stared at him for a moment as though she was having trouble focusing on him. “You got me a present?” 

“Yeah,” he sighed, “But I guess if you don’t want it—”

A slow grin spread on her face. “Fork it over, Lee.”

“Gods, you’re bossy. Anyone ever tell you that?”

“Gimme.” She swooped in on him, her face inches from his and her palm outstretched, fingers wiggling. He tried not to smirk.

“It’s not much,” he said, shifting his mug into his left hand. With his right, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the small cylinder wrapped messily in newspaper. “But I thought you might want this.” She took it and he tapped his fingers nervously on her desk. “I was going to leave it outside your door before I left tomorrow, I figured that you’d probably laugh or something, but… well I’m not leaving so—”

“Lotion?” she asked, turning it over in her hands.

“For your hands. They get dry and you’re always rubbing at them, and it’s winter now, so the cold will make it—” he broke off, uncomfortably aware that he was rambling. “I thought that might help,” he finished lamely. 

Kara’s brow furrowed. Lee watched her turn the bottle over in her hands a few more times, with an unreadable expression on her face. He fought a sigh that so desperately wanted to be released. He’d crossed a line, they were friends, but they didn’t do this kind of thing. She probably thought it was incredibly stupid. Lee began to ponder cutting his losses and leaving now, when she looked up at him. 

“I didn’t get you anything.” 

“It’s okay, we didn’t talk about, you know, exchanging gifts, I just… saw that and thought it might… you know… be useful.” Lee lifted his mug to take a drink, forcing himself to just stop talking.

Kara opened the bottle and squeezed a small amount of lotion onto her hands, rubbing them together, flexing her fingers. He swallowed and looked away for a moment. She brought her hands closer to her face and sniffed before turning her attention back to the bottle, reading over the label. “Virgon Desert Rose? Frak, Lee, could you pick a girlier scent?” 

“Well, if you’re just going to be ungrateful—”

She slugged him lightly in the arm, before holding out her hand towards him. “Thank you, Lee. Really.” 

He smiled and gripped her hand, shaking lightly. This was how things normally went with them—and it’s also probably how he should’ve ended it—but on an impulse, he stepped closer to her, wrapping his right arm around her shoulders and pulling her against him. 

For a moment she stood still in his arms before lightly resting her head against his shoulders. And there it was, that warm feeling in his chest; he decided to blame it on the hot chocolate, especially when she quickly pulled back and nodded down to his drink. “Don’t wanna spill that,” she said, her gaze remaining turned away from him. 

“Right,” he said back, barely able to get out a whisper. “Wouldn’t want that.” He cleared his throat, desperate to get his voice back, as he watched her take up her mug again and sit down on her desk.

Lee sat across from her on her bed, his mug clutched between his hands. The wireless had switched over from the doomsday weather reports and was now playing some obnoxiously cheerful holiday music, but neither of them could be bothered to turn it off. He followed her gaze out the window where the snow was still falling relentlessly. “It’s really coming down out there, huh?” he muttered raising his mug to his lips. “Think we might get snowed in?”

She shrugged her shoulders and turned back to him. “What are you going to do?”

“Huh?”

“I mean, you’re missing your flight.”

It was Lee’s turn to shrug. “I’ll just have to book another one. Might have to wait until the roads are all clear though. That could take a while, especially since the locals didn’t really seem prepared for a storm.”

“Guess you’re stuck with me, then,” she laughed. Her lips quirked into another smile he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her wear before, an expression on her face that he couldn’t quite read. 

“I can think of worse things,” he said. Kara turned to him like she was waiting for the punch-line of a joke. “Happy holidays, Kara.” 

He raised his mug towards hers, waiting. She reached her mug out, tapping the edge of hers against his. “Happy holidays, Lee."

 


End file.
